​A group of community members protesting outside the municipal building in Harding have disrupted municipal operations resulting in most in areas falling under Umuziwabantu being subjected to water outages. The protesters have since from last week closed entrances to Ugu Municipal offices and water treatment plants preventing workers from entering their work stations. Countless meetings were convened by the leadership of the Municipality with the protesters where outrageous demands of employment of Harding residents to all the occupied positions of truck drivers and general workers were made. And it became abundantly clear during the meetings that the protesters were determined to cause a complete shut down of municipal services in the area.The Municipality wishes to advise communities of Umuziwabantu of possible water outages while attempts to resolve the ongoing community impasse is underway. Also, the Municipality is currently contending with the challenges of water shortages in the areas of Umuziwabantu due to drought. Alternative supply has been made to ensure that communities are supplied with water while seeking to declare this a disaster area. The ongoing community protest has the potential of rendering these initiated measures to collapse which will result in a complete shutdown of water supply in all areas under Umuziwabantu.It is unfortunate that residents of Umuziwabantu will during this period be subjected to dry taps due to self-centred illicit actions of a group of members of the community who are holding the municipality under duress. His Worship the Mayor, Cllr Mondli Chiliza convened a meeting yesterday with Amakhosi and leadership of Umuziwabantu Municipality to acquaint them of the challenges faced by the District Municipality in discharging its obligation of providing communities of Umuziwabantu with water.Understanding the plethora of the challenges faced by communities during this period, we will strive towards ensuring that sanity prevails on the ongoing stalemate and where possible, continue to work diligently with the limited resources at our disposal to ensure that service interruptions are minimised. The disruption of provision of water services is by no means in the interest of the community of Umuziwabantu. And we have engaged the services of the law enforcement agencies to assist in dealing with possible acts of sabotage to the municipal infrastructure and the prevalent acts of intimidation.We appeal to our communities to bear with us during this period while we work tirelessly towards arresting this situation.ENDSISSUED BY:UGU DISTRICT MUNICIPALITYFor more information and media queries contact:Senior Manager: Mayoralty and CommunicationsMr France ZamaFrance.Zama@ugu.websitesupport.co.za